


at least it was here

by universe93



Series: Bruinshark Prompts [1]
Category: Actor RPF, American (US) Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: F/M, London, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Second Person, Paris (City), Sexual Content, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 15:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12083577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universe93/pseuds/universe93
Summary: He worked all the time. You knew that. You told yourself over and over that you knew that. When you met him, he was working. So you knew when he asked you to come to London, when you said yes, it was because his evenings were the most free time he’d have for a while. It was because you wanted to spend them with him.Reality, sometimes, is better than things you can imagine, even when it’s hard to believe.A 2014 Seth/reader fic from Tumblr





	at least it was here

London was nothing like you thought it would be.

In the middle of May, you took a dare and crashed a party. A premiere, the type of party that only ever happens once. You had no idea.

He was never meant to let you stay, talk to you half the night, ignore other people to stay with you. He even blew off an executive with a wave of a hand as you wrote down your phone number, handed it to him with a smile. That was supposed to be all it was, a fling at a party. That’s never all it is, though. They call the next day and from that moment you were done.

And then he asked you to come to London.

He worked all the time. You knew that. You told yourself over and over that you knew that. When you met him, he was working. So you knew when he asked you to come to London, when you said yes, it was because his evenings were the most free time he’d have for a while. It was because you wanted to spend them with him. You stayed up all night before he left, using his tried and true system: stay up ‘til 5am drinking Jack, stumble on a private plane, sleep until you land. Of course, it wasn’t just drinking. You were the one that kissed him, pulled him closer, didn’t stop. But he was the one who asked you if you were sure. He kept asking. He kept staring at you over glasses of Jack.

This was his trip. He worked all day, interviews and press conferences, answering the same question over and over. You spent them visiting everything you’d you always wanted to see, Tower of London, the Eye. In those hours you felt like a tourist on a holiday alone, visiting everything without him. For the first few evenings, which he told you were to be full of long dinners and private cinemas, he was exhausted. He walked in to your suite on one of those early nights, not so fresh from a long press conference with Charlize. You hadn’t met her since the party, where she’d tried to help you find your non-existent purse. Hopefully she’d like you when she met you all over again.

“Hey,” he told you from the door. He’d got a two bedroom suite, just so you didn’t feel uncomfortable. It was stupid. You’d always wind up in the same one.

“Hey,” you chirped back, and closed the book you were reading. You watched as he changed into a t-shirt and turned off his phone. “I did the British Museum today. Amazing. I’m such a nerd.”

"Not as much as me,” Seth sighed, making a big show of flopping down on the bed. You smiled at him, asleep in two seconds, and tried to read again. It was hard to focus. There was no way you could be here right now. It was like walking in a haze, the kind of fog in your brain that makes it hard to see beyond what’s immediately happening. He was lying right in front of you.

After a moment, you shut your book and lay down next to him. The light passed above you, shifting dust through the air, and everything was still. The bed was soft beneath you. Reality, sometimes, is better than things you can imagine, even when it’s hard to believe.

Seth opened his eyes for a moment, looked straight at you. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you grinned, not able to help yourself.

“What did you get up to today?”

“You asked me that already,” you giggled, and he shut his eyes again with a smile and an ‘oh’. You let him rest, sleep, became mildly grumpy at his long eyelashes, and wondered again how the hell this happened. Somehow you’d crashed his party and he’d fallen for you. It wasn’t hard to tell.

You were falling for him, too.

* * *

He wandered in a few nights later, wide awake, while you were watching terrible British soap operas. After he’d woken up, you’d felt like a queen in the hours you were with him that week. You were still getting to know each other, just like normal people. You just happened to be doing it in strange places - the top of the London Eye, your own private dining room in Bath. A room service picnic on the floor of a hotel room. It was absolutely enough. And yet he told you he had a surprise.

“What,” you asked him jokingly, “another dinner? It’s always food with you.”

He handed you an envelope, gold paper, an actual seal. He always was into the details, just like when he’d asked you to go to London in the first place. After a moment, you held it back out to him.

“You don’t have to keep surprising me. I love it, I just don’t need it.”

He pushed it back at you. “C’mon, open it. I promise it’s not something big and flashy and privately arranged.”

You raised your eyebrows.

“Alright, fine, it’s all of those things. Would you just open it? I’m trying to impress you.”

“I’m sitting in London, I’m already impressed.” You ripped it open. Inside was a long and detailed plan that involved air miles, fuel surcharges and a per hour plane hire charge. You’d never seen it and yet it looked familiar.

“Yeah, it’s confusing,” he confessed. “I forgot private planes don’t have tickets. Just look at the destination again.”

Your eyes darted over it. CDG- Paris Charles Du Gaulle. Your jaw fell open and suddenly your breath left your chest. Paris. Paris.

“I know you’ve always wanted to go,” he started, your eyes transfixed on the page. “I convinced the network they can do without me for a few more days. If you can’t, I can get you on the next plane out, just-”

His voice in your head trailed off. It was like half your body was in one place, and the rest was somewhere else. All at once you were hit with that strong feeling of deja vu, the kind that throws your bones around. In some other life this had happened before. You’d already been on this ride and you had absolutely no desire to stop.

“Hey.” He brought you out of yourself with a hand on your hair. You still couldn’t close your jaw. “I just want to spend time with you when I’m not surrounded by fucking reporters. That’s all it is.”

You shut him up with a kiss because that was all you could say, except maybe a single word. “Yes.”

This wasn’t meant to feel so right so quickly, you thought as he kissed you back. It was like something clicked when you met him. Even if you were evading security at the time, you felt the click.

Suddenly, he broke away. “I just remembered I don’t speak French. This is not- I’m not sure I thought this through.”

“I’m not sure you thought any of this week through,” you laughed, breathless, thoughtless, “but I don’t care.”

“Neither do I,” he smiled, and went back to kissing you. You weren’t letting this go, you decided. You just couldn’t. And in one decision, all and any doubt flew rapidly away.

* * *

On your last night in London, Seth had one more dinner planned.

This would be the story you’d tell, you thought, even as you drove there with no concept of the evening to come. This would be the one you’d tell your parents and friends and nosy normal roommate. You couldn’t tell them what it was like the first time you kissed, the first time you woke up next to him, the first time you told him to stop asking if he could touch you. But you could tell them this. The random dinner you had with Charlize Theron and Sean Penn. A family friendly variant of what life was like on a whirlwind trip with Seth Macfarlane.

“Well!” Charlize turned to Seth with a grin as he introduced you. “Could this be the girl you randomly decided to take to England at the last minute?”

“I’m a girl who couldn’t pass this up,” you smiled in response before he could say anything. “I know how it looks, though.”

"You don’t have to say anything, I’ll tell her to shut up,” Seth quickly told you aside, but you shrugged. Everyone knew you were crazy; Charlize had to know by now. You told him to get you a drink, and he gave you both a look as he left.

“He’s pretty great, isn’t he?” Charlize mused next to you. “I like him. He’s actually not an asshole.”

“No, he’s not,” you smiled, and thought out loud. “I know it’s crazy for me to be here but I’m not taking advantage of him. It’s just fun. It’s more than fun. I really like him.”

“For what it’s worth, from the amount he talks about you, he likes you too.”

You raised your eyebrows, your world distilling down to a single room. You thought you were just a tagger-on in his mind, an extra. Not someone he talked about in the day. Reality breezed through your mind. Maybe you weren’t as crazy as you thought.

“It’s okay,” she started again. “Stick with me, you’ll be fine.”

“That’s exactly what he said at the premiere.”

She almost choked on her drink. “Oh my god! You’re the purse girl!”

You had to laugh. “I’m…something, that’s for sure.”

Seth came back with your drinks and you all sat down. You tried not to laugh too hard or stare too much. You tried not to talk too much. You failed to stop smiling when he reached out like it was natural, and grabbed hold of your hand.

* * *

On the plane the next day - private, of course, small, confined, perfect - you looked at Seth, in a seat facing yours, reading with headphones in. You nudged his leg with yours, and he took a headphone out with the raise of an eyebrow. You were relaxed, your head and body slouched against the back of the chair, and yet you were serious.

“I shouldn’t be here,” you sighed.

“Are we talking about this particular plane or the continent?” he joked at first, then he saw your face. No smile, you could feel. He shifted, concerned, maybe anxious, for you and your happiness. “Okay. I don’t know, we can fix it. You can get off, we’ll turn it around-”

“No,” you laughed, though it wasn’t a joke. “No, I mean, I should be here. You want me here.”

"Yeah, I do,” he told you earnestly. He put his book down and leaned forward, laid his hands casually on your outstretched legs. “But I’m not interested in forcing you into anything you’re not comfortable with. Or anywhere.”

You smiled at him, feeling so peaceful even though your mind was a freight train. He took care of you, you realized. If you let him he would take care of you. It was strange in a time when everything around you said it was time to fend for yourself.

“I should and shouldn’t be here,” you finished. “A normal person wouldn’t be here.”

“Well,” he started causally, picking up his book, “that’s because you’re not normal.”

It took time to process, to register, to smile. It took less to throw a pillow at his head. He threw one back with bad aim, and you laughed, and he looked around to see if the attendant was around. Then he looked down at his book and gestured for you to come to him, his eyes never moving up. In a few movements you were curled up next to him on the huge seat.

You fell asleep to the distant sounds of Sinatra from his headphones, his hand rested on your knee.

* * *

You ended up telling him all the details.

We all have things we keep. Stories and details about ourselves that we hide away because we’re scared people will think us boring, or stupid, or crazy if they know. He already knew the basics. Global studies and film at college, dorm life, a necessary year abroad on the horizon. But he knew more than that, even more than you could tell him. He read your face like a book with those dark eyes.

You told him how anxious you were about your year abroad, how scared you were that you would never want to come back. It was the same fear you felt when his face softened, when he touched your hair. It was terrifying, how much he seemed to care, in such an unrealistic way. And yet it was real. Somehow all of this was real. You didn’t want to take it back.

You’d just walked out of the Louvre, art in your head. Your chest still hurt from laughter. Seth tested the theory that Mona Lisa stared at you wherever you went. The image of him shifting back and forth to see if it was true still made you smile.

“I think I’d like to go back here,” you told him. He looked back at the building. You gesture vaguely to the world instead, spin around in a circle. “It’s amazing, but I don’t know if I should, you know?”

“God, I don’t know,” he started, looking, around. “Why would you want to come back to a place brimming with culture, art and people with actual brains? It’s horrible.”

You smiled, but felt it fade too quickly. “I’d probably get stuck here. It all seems exciting now, but it wouldn’t once I’d been here three months.”

He absentmindedly put his hand in his pocket. You placed your hand on his wrist without thinking as he looked down to see why. “They can’t reach you on your phone here. I know the idea of not working for a day is weird, but…”

You trailed off as he shifted his hand so you could hold it, staring down at you with those dark eyes. You wondered how this would work if you were in LA. Maybe you wouldn’t be on the street. Maybe it would be a party full of brainless types, and you’d be able to tell when his face fell. You’d take his hand and remind him you were there.

“Sorry,” he sighed, looking around. “The last time I took a vacation Dharma & Greg was still on the air.”

"What an awful show,” you cringed, and he laughed out loud and bright. Perhaps there was a version, you thought, of Los Angeles life where you and he could be. You pictured it in your head. You’d graduate, get a job, be a real person instead of pieces. He’d find time for you and you’d take it. You knew all the details about him now, how to read him, the ways to know him. Maybe the future didn’t have to be something to fear. For the first time it felt real, not imaginary, not a dream. His hand in yours, realer than real.

“C’mon,” he smiled, squeezing your hand. “I’ve got a list of equally horrible places to take you, and you’re not gonna sleep tonight.”

You mumbled it in his ear: “You won’t, either.”

You didn’t miss his smile and laugh of anticipation as you held his hand and walked away.

* * *

Seth took you to the very top of the Eiffel Tower the next day.

The view was typically amazing. There was security of course, a metal screen around the view to prevent people doing what they don’t want to admit. Seth checked every pocket he had until he found enough tiny shiny Euros to put in the viewfinder. You insist on taking turns, switching back and forth in a rush to see the tiny sights. It’s windy and cold from so high. He takes you by surprise in a corner when he puts his jacket over your shoulders.

You turn to face him. This was the romantic part. Even with others around, silently questioning whether that was really Seth Macfarlane, this was meant to be the romantic part. Your definition of romance had never been the most typical. It was a college life, yours. The idea that sharing your last cup of ramen or bringing terrible coffee was a romantic gesture was starting to evaporate. This was romance. Someone else’s coat, the top of a building, someone looking at you like you lit up their world. The famous name, his and the building, didn’t matter. But that was a moment that did.

He lifted a hand and moved some hair from your face, gently, unexpected. You didn’t deserve such romance, such extreme lengths, such a view. This was unbecoming of a crazy girl who’d crashed a party.

You blurted out the only words in your head. “I want to see Notre Dame. It’s not in the city but I’ve always wanted to see it.”

He checked his watch. “Sure, we can go this afternoon. I’ll call ahead. You know what, we should even rent the movie.”

“The Disney one,” you smiled, pulling his coat around you. “I haven’t seen that since I was a kid.”

“I have it for the screen at home,” he shrugged. A normality for someone with his own IMAX theatre, the ability to afford whatever he wanted. For someone who never had to wonder where his next lunch would come from. “You know I actually wanted to work for Disney?”

“I remember.” You moved to wrap your arms around him, but he looked to both sides at all the people and shifted away. That was a stupid thing, the downside of romance and why he couldn’t have it. You knew he was just too used to people knowing him in a different way.

Suddenly, he put his hand on your back. He pushed you forward, kept walking as you protested until you rounded a corner into the dark alcove of an emergency exit door. And then his hands were on your face and he kissed you, softly, sweetly. You could have lived and died in that dark place, alone with him forever.

“Thank you,” you told him as you broke away, your eyes still closed, you hand touching his on your face. “For this whole thing. It’s too much-”

“Yeah, I know,” he told you softly. “But it’s okay.”

Other things happened that day, you were sure, but you didn’t remember a thing. Not the view or the cathedral, not the movie or Seth’s attempt at French. Just an alcove in an anywhere place, you and him together.

* * *

Sometimes you’re certain you’re crazy.

Your life back home reminds you of itself occasionally, in emails and video calls. Your stupid dorm room is waiting there for you, overdue assignments and textbooks, a roommate with a normal relationship. And you lied and left it for a week. It’s not the actions of someone who knows what they’re doing.

You realize this would be even more ridiculous if he were your age, if you were both college students in love who’d worked all summer to pay for this week. You’d probably wind up leaving each other at an altar somewhere in a misguided attempt to hold onto it. You wonder what you’ll do to hold on to this. It was crazy to begin with, crashing a party, so maybe it will end in a crazy way as well.

You were standing at a lookout, taking pictures of the street milling below you. You feel Seth walk up behind you, place his hands beside yours on the railing. He puts his chin on your shoulder for a moment and you both look at people, walking with their phones, living their lives. You felt him take in a breath to say something, then let it out, like he thought better of it. You turned to face him, your hands on his arms.

“What?” you smiled. “Go on, say it.”

“I’m really glad we did this,” he said quickly, like he wanted to give you a reason to pretend you didn’t hear it. “I’m just really glad you’re here. It’s fucking weird, not working, but I don’t know. It’s better with you.”

“What’s special about me?” you asked without thinking, a smile still on your face. He looked away for a moment, suddenly smiled, breathed out a laugh in profile. Maybe this was crazy for him too.

“You put up with me,” he told you, looking back. “I don’t care about work when I’m with you.”

You studied his face as he looked at you, and found the truth in it.

“You do care a little bit. I can tell. It’s okay, though,” you added to reassure him. “You’re here now.”

He smiled that smile that made you want to follow him anywhere, and you didn’t think about whether you were crazy. You just acted and held up your camera.

“Here.” You pulled him next to you, as close as you could get, and took a picture. He laughed after the flash went off, and held your hand. You walked away to wherever you going, whatever crazy place he had in mind.

Later you would frame that picture, keep it safe in case you ever needed a reminder of your own insanity and what it could bring. His face in far too much of a smile and you giggling alongside on some nowhere street. You keep it safer than anything he bought you, any ticket, any souvenir. You try to keep it as safe as what you had at the party, in the streets, in his bed.

It’s crazy, but it’s enough.

* * *

“Are you going to forget about me when we get back?”

You asked it mostly to the ceiling, the little decorated etching on it, the dust in the beam of light from the window. He was darting back and forth, trying to pack all the clothes he’d left all over the suite as he lay on the bed. All the ones he’d left every time he nipped your neck, ran his hands down your back, made you forget everything back home. You’d be home tomorrow through the time changes, and it would all end.

“How does anyone forget you?” he scoffed, interrupting your thought. You had to let yourself smile.

“I don’t know,” you answered, propping yourself up on your elbows. “They close their eyes and I’m gone.”

Seth paused midway to the suitcase, looked at you like he was trying to find the right words. You watched as he came around and climbed on to the bed, shifting his arms so he was right above you. His eyes searched your face and you wondered why.

“Nobody should ever forget about you,” he told you softly, and every part of you was happy and warm, on fire and afraid. This couldn’t last, you thought. This can’t last. But you pulled him down to kiss you, and you rolled onto your sides. His hand was in your hair and then it reached down, pulled your hips towards his like he couldn’t stand the atoms, the energy, the space between your bodies. He touched you like you were everything.

It stuck in your head afterwards as you lay breathless, trying to re-calibrate, him too. Imagine, you thought, being everything. Imagine someone wanting to do that with you. You’d done it before, of course, spent weekends with boys in your dorm, fumbled with drunk boys in theirs. But this was different. This was hunger, a feeling, wanting more and more with every second. This was overwhelming, and at the end like seeing a million stars in a galaxy, all dead, all far away.

"Are you okay?” he asked as usual, breathless himself. You stared at him and wondered. You’d never felt this okay in your life. So you kissed him, Seth, him, moved until he shifted inside you and you forgot everything else in the world.

This won’t last, you thought. Tomorrow it’ll die like the stars, like everything. But today is happening right now.

* * *

Paris was nothing like you thought it would be.

You sat on a larger plane this time. In not so many hours you’d be back in LA, a tiny dorm room, an old and familiar life. You kept imagining yourself opening the door, dragging your suitcase in, flopping your bag on the bed. Somehow you couldn’t picture yourself sitting down. The minute you succumbed to jet lag in the grey t-shirt you’d stolen from him, you’d begin to forget. And he would go back to working, voices, scripts, talks, and you would evaporate from his mind.

In your head you had an idea of you and him, colliding on the street in Hollywood one day. You’d ask about his day and he’d blink and ponder behind his eyes if you’d met. And you would yell and scream on the inside at what you expected all along. You promised you wouldn’t forget.

Memories, you decided, are like imprints, like stars in the sky. They’re dead, and they’re gone; they can’t exist anymore even if you want them to. But still, somehow, you can see them in front of you. They can feel so real and seem so bright you believe in them. You hoped to God this wasn’t the same. Seth felt real, London felt real, Paris more so. You had souvenirs and photos, real things to remind you. It had to feel the same to him. You didn’t want it all to be another thing you couldn’t keep alive.

There was no way to ask him. Seth fell asleep regardless, and you remembered the beginning, watching him as he slept off the jet lag and stupid questions. The realization shook your bones. You’d fallen, and you wanted him every day.

In time you fell asleep too. You dreamed of gold envelopes and kisses, and going all the way back to the start.

* * *

You landed at a private airport in LA in the dead of morning.

He stepped off the plane and so did you. Your brain wanted to stay right there with him but your body took you to arrivals with him, let him kiss you lightly and say he’d call you. You let go of him, a last hug, and he walked away. Maybe he would call. Maybe it would work. But your brain told you this was a singular moment, a time you had to change everything or risk it remaining the same. And he was walking away.

“Hey.” Your voice sounded small and hollow but it turned him around from too far away. The few people in the airport milled around, even walked in the huge gap between you. They didn’t notice, so you spoke. You couldn’t breathe with all the things you had to say.

“This can’t end,” you told him, everything attached to every word. “I don’t want it to end. I know I’m stupid and crazy, but I want this all the time. Please don’t walk away.”

You stood there, hands by your side, out of words and everything else. He stared at you, his eyes searching your face. You’ll remember that look until the day you die. People were looking now, silent enquiries, and he let go of his suitcase. The moment stretched out forever and ever. And then he started to move.

“Thank god,” he breathed out, and kissed you, hard, amazing, beautiful. Your bag tumbled to the ground, his hands in your hair, yours on his back. People stared, smiled, but it all fell away. Everything was real, a dream to life in front of you. A ticket to a new place right underneath your hands.

That’s how you take something unreal and make it a reality. How you take a week and turn it into a month, a year, maybe a lifetime. It doesn’t always function, you and him, but its worth any pause or consideration. You do something stupid, live with it, and refuse to let it go.

That’s how you start the rest of your life.


End file.
